Inside the Absence of Fear
by Kaelyn
Summary: If you had nothing left, what would you do? Angsty and no names, can you guess the POV?


AN: Well, this is my first story uploaded here and my first Harry Potter Fanfic. (Why does everyone feel the need to put that? Seems strange,::sighs:: oh well.) Can you figure out whose POV this is? Any reviews would be vastly appreciated and adored! I guess that's all for now. Enjoy!! BTY, I'm reposting this because I forgot to put disclaimers and credit. So sorry!  
  
Disclaimers: All characters belong to JKR, whom I am most certainly * not*. Therefore, draw your own conclusions, peoples. And also, the name of this and a little bit of the actual story was inspired by the song 'Inside the Absence of Fear" by Jewel.   
  
  
*~*Inside the Absence of Fear*~*  
By Kaelyn  
  
  
I sit and wait for her to come. I have no idea if she will but what do I have to lose? Now that I think about it, I wouldn't blame her if she didn't show. I have certainly been an utter git the past few years. I think back on all the snide little remarks and sharp barbs that I have pushed past her thick defenses into peach schnapps skin and I cringe. To think that anyone could be so cruel as I was.  
  
For years I have held myself within my safe bubble of pureblood and old money, forcing anyone not like myself as far from me as possible. And for a while I was happy with my narrow-minded ideals that have been pressed upon me since birth, happy with my mean streaked friends and surrounded by sharks but reveling because I too was a shark and I belonged.  
  
It's funny how one small event can change one's views so completely as to shatter one's world like a mirror bringing seven years bad luck. No matter how hard you clutch at the fragments, they only cut, slicing deeply into pale flesh and bringing stinging lines of poisoned blood to the fore. Just one event. For me: a smile.  
  
When I was little I used to cut at her, nettle her and her friends until they were ready to fight back, blind rage making them react without thought. It would give me a delicious, sadistic sort of pleasure to see their faces change from appalled, to hurt, to anger. And this is what I was doing when everything changed.  
  
A fierce pleasure-pain ached through my veins like a forbidden potion. What I had said was unforgivable and I, unforgiven. Or so I had thought. But she put a hand on each of her friend's shoulders, calm flowing from her palms like aloe on a fiery sunburn, cooling ire to sullen resentment. She shook her head sadly, saying in her whisper-soft voice so much like an echo of an angel speaking directly to the Lord: " Don't. It's what he wants."  
  
And she was right. I wanted one of them to throw the first punch; to hit me, draw blood and relieve the fierce itch that ran coldly through my veins. It was the only way to get rid of a feeling like dozens of fire ants crawling under my skin. Only the tingling pain of a slap could kill the little suckers and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks in anger that she would dare deny me of my wretched ecstasy. I turned on her. A trademark sneer that I had carefully cultivated over the years was ready on my lips as I warmed up to her challenge. She stared coolly and calmly back. Gauntlets had been thrown, paces taken. Now all that was left was to turn and shoot.  
  
And I did.  
  
I let out a string of insults, none of which I could possibly remember now, making sure to prick her where I knew it would really hurt. You see, I really know her quite well. I know all my enemies well, know those things they are most sensitive about, passionate about. I could make a grown man cry if I chose and had often done so out of boredom. I am well learned in this lesson taught to me. Straight A's. I grew up with it; how could I not be good?  
  
And it was working, I could tell. Her blue eyes glimmered like sunlit water under the rain of her tears. Full lower lip trembled slightly as my torrent of words continued unabated and my eyes were drawn to that tremble. The sickening feeling of intense pleasure that sent shivers down my spine did little to stop the ants from making a nest within my blood and heart. And still she said nothing.  
  
Her friends had other ideas. Her red-headed friend whose family is more numerous than their money leapt at me, silencing me with a fist to the mouth. Salty sweet blood trickled over my tongue and lips from the cuts my teeth made to the insides of my cheeks and I almost smiled in bliss. He was more of a friend to me than the so-called ones that usually followed me like hulking bodyguards. He got rid of the itch.  
  
Wanting, needing more, the words continued to tumble from my cut lips, taunting him, daring him to hit me again. Come on, I thought. Do it, you know you want to. He paled with anger as I continued to insult all of them now, his freckles standing out starkly and looking like the ants that so afflicted me.  
  
They both jumped in this time, black-haired and green-eyed Mr. Perfect joining in to rub mud into my white-blonde hair and to streak it with crimson. I thought that was how it should be. Nothing so sullied as I should have tresses so pure a color. It was almost blasphemous. Now it looked as it should, as I do inside: red anger and sludgy-dark fear.  
  
Of course I fight back. They would not have continued to help me if they had thought for a moment they were doing me a favor and besides, it would be over soon enough when a teacher happened by. I had to get rid of this infernal itch before then. But it was too late, they had only just begun when they were pulled away, leaving me with ants biting their way through my body. I looked up, furious at whoever would so deprive me. It was her. Again.   
  
She knelt beside me, fear in her eyes as she asked if I was all right. Fear for me. That astounded me. Not even my mother had ever looked at me that way.   
  
She reached down and gently brushed my cheek, murmuring a few words of healing. I must have hit my head rather hard because I said thank you. I never say thank you.  
  
Surprise and pleasure coalesced like pipe smoke inside blue irises as she stared down into my icy gray ones and tentatively, she gave me a faltering smile. The itch that plagued me incessantly quite abruptly curled up and died under that Virgin Mary smile.  
  
It was then that I knew; I was irretrievably and willingly lost.  
  
For a full year after that I watched her. Watched as those two fool friends of hers led her into mischief time and again. I watched jealously as a kind of love blossomed between the fire-haired boy and her and laughed in pure joy as it died back into fireside friendship. I was a constant unseen shadow by her side, Casper the friendly Ghost who lured the baddies away before they could harm or displease. In return for my anonymous guardianship, she kept my devils chewing just at the frayed edges of my mind, stopping them from going further.  
  
Until now.  
  
My father has called for me to come home. I am to become his apprentice in the horrible things he does. I do not want to leave, don't want to leave her but I haven't much of a choice. What I am and what I am to become are marked indelibly upon my flesh and soul. I am empty of any emotions, even fear; I think insanity would take over if I dared to feel anything. But I cannot leave without telling her what she has done for me. And what I feel for her.  
  
I do not know if she will come. I wouldn't blame her if she didn't. But still I wait in this darkened room because what have I to lose here, inside the absence of fear?  
  
  
Please, any comments would be absolutely revered for the God's-candy that they are. So please do your good deed for the day and put some pretty black letters into the ugly white space down in the review box. Please?  
  
Email: kaelyn@quik.com  
  
Hompage: http://hometown.aol.com/ramseskittyn/enter.html  
  
Quote for the day: "Miss Patty: Walk smooth. That's the new Harry Potter on your heads. If they should drop, Harry will die, and there won't be any more books."  
-Gilmore girls  
  



End file.
